as highly sinful; and considering the Church of Ireland as schismatical, he resolved to induce the people to separate from it. Accordingly, he ordained Creagh, who had shewn some diligence in exhorting the people to forsake the obedience of their bishops and the service of the Church, to the archbishopric of Armagh, although that see was already filled by the legitimate primate, Loftus. Creagh, who is styled by the Romish historians, "the principal propagator or restorer of the Catholic faith in Ireland,” came over and perverted some of the people. The pope sent some other emissaries, and, in conjunction with the King of Spain, to whom he had given the dominions of Queen Elizabeth, excited the Irish chieftains and people to insurrection. In consequence, Ireland became the scene of war for thirty years, in which the bishops, Jesuits, and other priests sent by the pope, took a most active and leading part. In this war, numbers of the ignorant and savage people were exposed to the arts of the popish emissaries, and persuaded or forced to forsake the Church, in order to shew their hostility to the queen. Let me mention a few facts in corroboration of these statements. In 1575, Jaimus Geraldine, one of the Irish lords engaged in plotting an insurrection against his sovereign Queen Elizabeth, went to Philip II., king of Spain, on whom Pope Pius V. had conferred the dominions of the queen, and sought assistance from him for the Irish Romanists. He then went to Rome, where, after some time, he obtained from the pope a pardon for all the bands of robbers who then infested Italy, on condition that they should undertake an expedition to Ireland for the exaltation of the see of Rome. An army thus composed was headed by a titular popish bishop of Killaloe in Ireland, and by the Jesuit Sanders; and they landed in Ireland not long after, bringing a bull

from Pope Gregory XIII., in which all who should unite in rebellion against Queen Elizabeth were promised a plenary pardon of their sins. This expedition, however, entirely failed; but the same titular bishop, a few years afterwards, is found introducing supplies of men, money, and arms from Spain for the relief of the insurgents. Another schismatic, assuming the title of Archbishop of Armagh, came with orders from the King of Spain that the Irish should revolt; and having excited a rebellion, he fell in battle with the royal troops. Ohely, called Archbishop of Tuam, was sent afterwards, by one of the Irish chieftains, to the King of Spain, whom he exhorted to invade and subdue Ireland. When the next insurrection broke out, we find Maceogan, a titular bishop and vicar of the Roman pontiff, issuing an excommunication against all who should give quarter to the prisoners taken from the queen's army. Maceogan caused all such persons to be put to death in his presence; and he himself at last fell in battle against the royal army, leading a troop of horse, with his sword in one hand, and his breviary and beads in the other!

The ignorance and superstition of the lower orders of the Irish at this time made them unhappily an easy prey to the emissaries of Rome, who came from Spain, Italy, and Flanders, and vehemently declaimed against the Churches of England and Ireland as heretical. Amongst the arguments used to delude this unhappy people, we find many lying wonders, visions, and miracles. It was said that on one occasion St. Columbkill took the form of a wolf, and carried a torch into the powder-magazine of a garrison of English "heretics," who were of course all destroyed. Another tale was, that a certain "heretic" converted a priest's vestment into a pair of trousers; but as soon as he had drawn

A A

An

them on, he took fire and was burnt to ashes. English governor, very much hated by the popish party, was said to have been heard conversing with the devil; presently after, an explosion was heard, and he was found lying frightfully distorted and insane, and soon after died. By such arguments were the Irish taught to hate their pastors, and to separate from their national Church. But all would have been insufficient, if the country had remained in peaceable subjection to its sovereign; and therefore the Popes Pius V. and Gregory XIII. promoted insurrections in Ireland against the royal authority; and the people were compelled by their chiefs to forsake the communion of their legitimate bishops, and to become obedient to the usurpers whom the popes sent over to occupy their places. It was only by a long series of rebellions that the schism in Ireland was consolidated and became so widely extended. The reign of Queen Elizabeth, however, sufficed for this lamentable catastrophe.

King James I. wisely discouraged the Roman schism, and forbade the residence of its bishops, priests, and Jesuits, in his dominions; but under his successor, Charles I., a relaxation of this wholesome severity encouraged the schismatics in Ireland to insult and disturb the Church, and ultimately, in 1641, to massacre in cold blood a hundred and fifty thousand of its adherents, and to break into insurrection.

The Church was now dreadfully persecuted by the papists and by the English parliament; but on the return of Charles II. resumed its rights. Persecution was renewed under James II., in 1690, when the Romish party obtained power; and in the rebellion of 1798. From that period, the Romish party has acquired great political power, and the Church has been almost continually persecuted, es

pecially within the last few years, in which the clergy have been reduced nearly to starvation; some have been murdered, and many placed in peril of their lives. To add to their afflictions, the government in 1833 suppressed ten of the bishoprics, on pretence of requiring their revenues for the support of ecclesiastical buildings; although the bishops of Ireland, in a body, protested against such an act, and offered to pay the amount required from the income of their sees, provided that so great an injury were not done to the cause of religion.

The

SCOTLAND had also become subject to the pope about the twelfth century; but the Reformation was not so soon or so happily introduced there as in England. There is room for censure of both parties in that country during the sixteenth century. Romish party exercised cruelties on their opponents, which led to their own downfal. The reformed, headed by Knox, were turbulent and irregular in their proceedings. They at first, in 1560, adopted a temporary church-government, which in some degree resembled the episcopal, and in 1572 agreed that bishops should be constituted; but soon afterwards, under the influence of Melville, who had imbibed a taste for the Genevan discipline, they rejected episcopacy, and established presbyterianism. In the beginning of the following century, these disorders ceased; and in 1612 the Church of Scotland was provided with lawful bishops and pastors, who were consecrated in England.

In 1638 the presbyterian party again became predominant, and took an oath or covenant to exterminate episcopal government. When Charles II. was restored, in 1660, the Church again was protected by the state, and bishops were consecrated in England for all the vacant sees. A party of Covenanters, however, separated from the Church,

esteeming episcopacy anti-Christian, and set up conventicles; and in 1690 the Scottish bishops having scrupled to take the oaths of allegiance to King William, this monarch caused the bishops to be expelled from their sees, and episcopacy to be abolished by act of parliament; and recognised the sectarians as the established Church. From this time the bishops, and the rest of the Scottish Church, were most sorely and cruelly persecuted by the Presbyterians, till 1788, when the penal laws were repealed; but during this period they had been much reduced in numbers.

A flourishing branch of the Catholic Church, derived from England, exists in AMERICA. When Virginia, and other provinces in North America, were settled by the English, early in the seventeenth century, the Church took root there, and for a long time was supported by the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Efforts were often made to obtain bishops for America, but they failed through the influence exerted by sectaries over the government. At length, after the United States had been declared independent, Dr. Seabury was ordained bishop of Connecticut, by the primus and bishops of Scotland; and other prelates were ordained for America, in England, in 1787 and 1790. The American Church is now governed by twenty bishops, and is rapidly increasing. Bishops have also been consecrated for many of the British possessions in India, North America, and the West Indies; and the limits of those Churches are continually enlarging. Many of the heathen have been converted by our missionaries in India and North America.